Thursday, March 22, 2012

I started performing as a standup comedian in April of 2010. Two years later, I’ve
now finished.

It was a complicated decision, but at the end it was an easy
one to make. I had my great moments, my successful shows – but there were also
plenty that I was not satisfied with, and some that were downright terrible
(though this is a normal part of the process in most comedians’ careers). The
question I asked myself was: suppose I become successful at this. Do I actually
want to be a full-time standup comedian? Do I want to do this for a living?

Hell no.

Starting up in Estonia, on the ground floor of a brand new
upcoming standup scene was a different experience from what most people go
through. For all intents and purposes, Comedy Estonia was (and remains) the
only game in a couple of very small towns. With a single circuit and a loyal
audience that largely came back every month, the emphasis was on producing a
five to ten minute set of new material every month, and almost no opportunity
to polish the performance in smaller venues before taking it to the show that
matters. To succeed in such a system, you have to be completely dedicated to
comedy. I had months where I came up with killer sets, but more often only a
few of the jokes got a good response. Standup was only a part of my identity,
not the most important thing in my life.

Nor was I completely dedicated to making people laugh at any
cost. Much like my blogging history is based on a sense of someone is wrong on the Internet, the original appeal of standup
was the fact that I would be on stage, and people would listen. The method was
to wrap things up in humor, but the purpose was to spread my opinion, my
perspective. I believed there were things that desperately need to be
ridiculed, which most performers avoid; and I believed that there were common
punchlines that ought to be avoided on general humanist grounds. This is a common
enough form of comedy, but it’s not the kind that Comedy Estonia’s audiences
necessarily want to hear. They’re there for an easy good time, for
entertainment, not philosophy. Even if I honed my craft to perfection, however,
I needed only to look at my heroes of this genre. Marc Maron, the headliner of
the first standup show I’d ever seen, at the Comedy Cellar in NYC (and whose
set I don’t remember at all, so sleep-deprived I was). Stewart Lee, who I saw
in London, and who gave the most raw, personal and passionate performance I’d
ever experienced. Aron Flam, for whom I opened at two separate Comedy Estonia
events. Successful alternative comedians are by definition – really, by
necessity – unhappy. I don’t have the secret formula for happiness, but I’m quite
good at not letting myself be miserable.

Miserable is what I was, for most of the time I spent on
standup-related activities. Oh, I loved it when I was on stage and doing well.
I also loved the satisfaction of writing out a really good set, or thinking of a
great twist on a premise. But I hated the travel – whether taking the ferry to
Helsinki, or catching the 11pm coach out of Tallinn after a show, because I had
to be in the office at 9am for my day job, and it was still better than
spending the night at in a dorm bed at a cheap hostel. I hated spending time in
bars and pubs with the type of people who normally hang out there – it’s just
not my scene. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad people – but they are people
with whom I would otherwise not hang out. Not the kind of people with whom I
become friends. And certainly, when my carefully prepared thoughts of the day
found no response, I deeply resented being judged by people whom I didn’t care
about. Whether it was the audience, who was not there to be forced to think, or
the majority of other standup comedians, who were almost always narrowly
focused. Successful comedians are either always looking for material, or are
always in public relations mode. In my mind, not everything was necessarily a
joke.

I stayed with Comedy Estonia for two full years, though I’d
been thinking of quitting for more than half of that time. Why didn’t I do it
before? Part of it was the challenge and rigor of coming up with new material
every month: as you can see from this blog’s posting schedule, I tend not to
write unless I have something forcing me. That skill of not letting myself be
miserable is largely based on creating a cocoon of numb comfort, an environment
where I can fall into emotional hibernation and stay there for a long time. The
necessity of creativity on schedule seemed like a good way to improve myself
overall. Another part, let’s be frank, was the money. Having been part of
Comedy Estonia from the start, and working on the production/promotion aspects
as well as the actual performances, I was in a better position to be paid than
the resident performers that came out of the open mic nights. It was never a
lot, but my freelancer instinct means I’m loathe to let go of any revenue
source at all. Another part, certainly a big one, was ego – the desire to be on
stage and be admired, something I acquired as a child actor in theater and
apparently never lost. Then again, a big part of it was also sheer
stubbornness: I just didn’t want to quit.

Until I asked myself that one question, and understood that
even I were to succeed, I would not enjoy it.

To be a great standup comedian, you need talent and
personality, you need hard work, but above all, you need the drive to keep
going in the face of inevitable disappointment, bitterness and depression. I’ve
had plenty of that early on in my life. Long before Comedy Estonia came along,
I learned how to structure my life to avoid it. If there was a standup scene in
Estonia back then, maybe I would have clung to it, made it my outlet and my purpose,
seen it as my only way to deal with what’s inside my head.

Successful comedians often say that standup is addictive,
and getting on stage is like a dose of heroin straight into your vein. For me
it was always methadone.